


Dollhouse

by PekoIsBaby



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Another poetry-type thing, But I can't call it a poem, Character Analysis, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Hiyoko's a bitch but I love her so hush, In a sense anyway, It's written metaphorically, Kinda, Mikan's barely mentioned, Poetry, Probably skip this one, So if you're reading for her, Vague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29944119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PekoIsBaby/pseuds/PekoIsBaby
Summary: An examination of the nature of dolls.
Relationships: Koizumi Mahiru/Saionji Hiyoko
Comments: 9
Kudos: 8





	Dollhouse

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, I present to you: Very specific pieces of work that cater to me and me alone! At least this one isn't a mash-up of two very niche fandoms that nobody will care about! :D 
> 
> Anyway, this was written for Hiyoko's birthday. I started out disliking Hiyoko, but I've found SO much appreciation for her and I think she's FAR deeper and more complex than people give her credit for. I love this dumb kid. 
> 
> Writing vaguely poetic stream-of-consciousness retellings of events seems to be my current vibe (potentially as a result of a Certain Horror Podcast) but I kinda enjoyed writing this, and I'm decently proud of what I came up with, so? 
> 
> Eh, I write for myself, everybody else is just a super cool bonus
> 
> Alright! That being said, vague-ish spoilers for the entirety of Goodbye Despair and also for Hiyoko's backstory. They're concrete enough that you could probably get what was going on, so I'd say probably don't read this if you haven't finished the game. 
> 
> Trigger warnings for:  
> -Objectification (like, so much)   
> -Implied/Referenced loss  
> -Child abuse (again, implied)  
> -Implied Character Death. 
> 
> I think that's it. If any of that bothers you, don't read it! Your safety is important. Drink some water. :D
> 
> Enjoy!

There is a dollhouse resting neatly in the corner. It is a very big dollhouse - flowers dotting the window boxes, pale pink curtains hung carefully from plastic hooks over plastic panes against plastic side-panelling - but the dolls within seem very, very small. Only two remain in the dollhouse. There were more, but, one by one, they were discarded, having been found too messy or too overused or simply not exciting enough for the game to continue. They lie motionless and dirty, off somewhere across the room, and the dolls left behind struggle to remember their faces.

The first doll is old, a rag doll kept in mint condition through years of careful work and care. She has been loved, but gently—too much love might stain her soft, perfect skin, leaving it blotchy with fingerprints and sticky with memories. She sits carefully in a chair in the dollhouse, not a yarn-spun hair out of place, and watches.

The second doll is plastic—pretty, smooth, blonde, nylon hair in twin pigtails, outfit carefully handcrafted in silken orange, eyes glassy and golden. She is much too delicate to be taken out of her packaging, for any touch at all might muss the hair or wrinkle the clothes or ruin the smoothness of her hard skin. Plastic is so easy to crack, after all, and the world is so clumsy. Best to leave this one in the box.

Still, that is not to say that one cannot play with this doll. Indeed, if one reaches to the back of the box and press a button, they can make her dance. The box is not big enough to allow more than a practiced, precise movement, but that’s all for the better, isn’t it? Better to watch her dance carefully, in the movements that have become second nature, than to risk damaging her with new movements. She’s very talented, see? She dances just like a real little girl. Watch, through the shiny clear plastic window of her box, as she performs her routine over, and over, and over. She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Like a stained-glass window, filtering light over a human face. Touching the real world, even if she is far too good and far too breakable to be a part of it.

The trouble is, you can only dance so much when trapped inside a dollhouse. There are only so many movements an old rag doll knows. So the doll has to go to a school. A great school, filled with people so talented that they can go nowhere else. But they are not dolls, and those who love the yellow-haired doll fear that they might handle her too clumsily and crack her against the linoleum floor. So they keep her in the package.

At school, the doll is frightened. Everyone around her is so loud and fluid, turning every emotional response into a performance. A girl with long purple hair cut at odd angles sobs in the corner, feelings spilling onto her wooden desk, and the class crowds around her, offering comfort and warmth. The doll doesn’t understand. The doll has a painted smile trapped against her lips, and everyone knows that dolls cannot cry. She doesn’t know how to fit into this new world. Instead, she turns the edges of her packaging razor-sharp, slicing at those who dare come close, praying that they will not notice that she is a liar, a not-person, a doll amongst real teenagers.

And then comes a young woman with short, red hair and a comforting smile. A young woman who the doll finds herself watching through her packaging, wishing that the glare from the sun would shift so she could get a better look through the plastic. Hours pass, and the doll watches silently. And, despite her care and the painted smile and the lack of tears, the young woman notices. She sits next to the doll, frowning and speaking gently, and reaches out to tear at the cardboard surrounding her. Panic flashes in the doll, and she slices at the young woman.

But day by day, more cardboard rips, and the doll feels air on her face and sun against her skin, and she stops fighting back. Air is so much sweeter than she’d ever expected, and it makes the smile molded across her face feel less tense, easier, less painful. She watches with satisfaction and hope as the young woman with the red hair pulls away the packaging and she can truly see the world for the first time.

And suddenly, she doesn’t feel so plastic anymore. Her flesh is soft, and real, and warm, and her hair is heavy and tugs gently at her scalp, and she wonders if it isn’t time for a hairstyle change.

The red-haired girl takes the blonde girl’s hand, and together they grow. They try to fill the wounds that have been left behind in each of them, doing their best to smooth over the gaps in both of their characters. From her, the no-longer-doll learns independence, and reminds the girl of the option of dependence. She learns to be older, and she teaches to be younger. They strike a balance in the middle, and finds that it suits them both just fine.

They don’t fall in love dramatically. There is no one moment that the blonde girl looks up and knows, nor one moment that the red-haired girl tells her. They fall in love as many real people do: Slowly, and inevitably, and simply by proxy of caring so much about one another that the desire to continue caring overpowers all else. It is unpracticed and clumsy, and yet the girl likens it to a dance. She steps forward, and the red-haired girl steps back. She makes lunch, and the red-haired girl brings a small dessert. They learn one another’s favorite things, and work them into the steps, until the dance is smooth and comfortable and perfect in only the way clumsy things can be.

The red-haired girl smells like air and sunshine. She smells like life.

She continues to smell like life, even as the world around them rots to cold, dark death. Even as they make it so.

The days pass in a blur of horror and delight, and the girl misses much, but she knows that she destroys the dollhouse. It’s so much easier to break it, when you’re a person, when you’re free of packaging. She picks up the old rag doll, staining it with blood and ash and suffering, and she destroys it. She throws every inch of frustration and pain into the deed, and, when there’s nothing left, she waits to feel satisfied. And she doesn’t.

All for the better, really. Despair reminds her how human she truly is now.

Forgetting - being shipped off to a world of sun and sea and sky and not remembering anything but the doll in the package - is strange. The package isn’t returned, but it whispers at her skin like a ghost, filling her with memories that she forgets aren’t far-off. She lashes out, and, like before, the red-haired girl is there to catch her.

Until she isn’t. Until the blonde girl finds herself gasping and alone, sobbing words that mean nothing into empty air. She begs for the packaging, for the muffled security of her box, for the days when she was plastic and nylon and silk and could not cry. When she didn’t know what things like freedom and love tasted like, when she could close her eyes to the rest of the world and stay in the neatness of the dollhouse. She hates the real world, hates _being_ real. She hates everyone around her. She hates being alone.

Her body becomes hollow, breakable. Freedom tastes bitter with loss, love is shattered against the unforgiving floor. She is a brittle, thin thing, with twigs for arms and porcelain for a face. There is nothing for her anymore. 

When she is broken, it’s hardly even a surprise. She is not shocked by the snap of her soul, nor the crack of her skin. She is mildly befuddled by the fact that she still bleeds.

And then she is in darkness, for a long time. Light does not shine through closed eyelids, and, indeed, to her knowledge her eyes are not closed. But she is not dead. Not quite. She wonders if dolls can die at all.

When light comes back, it finds her in a glass container. She is in a package once again, hooked up to tubes and surrounded by fluid. She is sticky, and messy, and trapped. There is no escape. She is a pretty doll in a pretty package with not-so-pretty thoughts bouncing in her head, and she is afraid.

And then, just as before, and just as the time before that, there is a hand. And there is a smile. And there is a girl with short, red hair, unwrapping the package and bringing her into the light. 

**Author's Note:**

> Do I know if Mahiru would've woken up before Hiyoko? No! I assume they woke up in the order in which they died (for example, because Imp has had the most time to recover from death, they might wake up first?) but I don't ACTUALLY have the faintest idea
> 
> But I choose to believe that she did because I'm Gay.
> 
> Ironically this made me ship Mahiyoko (Soapies?) like 50x more, I love them 
> 
> I also ship Mahiru and Mikan which makes for a VERY funny dynamic
> 
> And,, yeah! That's it! Thanks for reading.


End file.
